Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ...nursed their sick, and tended their aged as if their own parents, and were charitable to all men; who renounced all animal passions, eschewed anger, ate and drank in strictest moderation, accumulated neither wealth nor possessions, wore the simplest white dress till it was no longer fit for use; repudiated slavery, oaths, marriage; abstained from meat and wine, even from the common Eastern anointing with oil; used mystic lustrations, had mystic rites and mystic prayers, an esoteric literature and doctrines; whose every meal was a sacrifice, and every act one of self-denial; who, besides, were strictly truthful, honest, upright, virtuous, chaste, and charitable--in short, whose life meant, positively and negatively, a continual purification of the soul by mortification of the body. To the astonished onlookers this mode of life was rendered even more sacred by doctrines, a literature, and magic power known only to the initiated. Their mysterious traditions made them cognisant of the names of Angels, by which we are, no doubt, to understand a theosophic knowledge, fellowship with the Angelic world, and the power of employing its ministry. Their constant purifications, and the study of their prophetic /.win, -(vritings, gave them the power of prediction;' the same mystic Ant. iiii. n. writings revealed the secret remedies of plants and stones for the Itu. is. 3 ' healing of the body,1 as well as what was needed for the cure of souls. It deserves special notice that this intercourse with Angels, this secret traditional literature, and its teaching concerning mysterious remedies in plants and stones, are not unfrequently referred to in that Apocalyptic literature known as the' Pseudepigraphic Writings.' Confining ourselves to..